I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas
by Lady Sidera
Summary: When your Christmas Past has always been sad and lonely, can you really hope for better things from Christmas Future? Christmas Rodney angst style.


**I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas**

Summary: When your Christmas Past has always been sad and lonely, can you really hope for better things from Christmas Future?  
Central Character(s): Rodney... and the Team. But mainly Rodney. ;)  
Category(ies): Angst, Drama, Friendship, Humor, Smarm.  
Placement: Sometime lateish in Season 1.  
Rating: G; nothing really upsetting in this except for Rodney's lousy childhood.  
Spoilers: No real spoilers in this one. Most references are to fanfic canon. I think most people know by now that he _has_ a sister, so not sure that counts... There are sort of oblique references to _SG-1's_ "48 Hours", and "Redemption: Parts 1 & 2", but that's about it I think. Just non-spoilery, Christmassy goodness all around:)  
Friendship Focussed: Rodney and Team, with the usual accent on John and Rodney.

Author's Note: Hello! Remember me? (Long and awkward silence ensues.) No? Ah, well, it has been awhile - ahem - since I put anything up, so, yeah, understandable... _Anyways...  
_My family and I moved to a much warmer climate a few years back, and, honestly, one of the things I miss the most is the snow... So that's where this came from, but I don't think I would ever have thought to write it if it hadn't been for gaffer42's Weight of History. Her stories do seem to have a tremendous influence on me, in general. I mean, the effect of Fortitude alone... Hm, maybe I should mention that to her some day? ;) (Gaffer, if you're reading this, I think you're _amazing!_ :D )  
Two other stories which deserve mention as being both significant influences, and truly wonderful Christmas stories are Wraithfodder's Of Memories Past, and OXBastetXO's God Bess Us, Every One. Both are _fantastic_, and I highly recommend reading them if you have the chance. :) And I think I managed a couple of sneaky (or not so sneaky...) references to each of these, which you might catch if you know the fics... :) I also included a nod to the "Stuck On the Freezing-Cold, Snowy Planet" genre of fanfic - because I had to. ;)  
Also, a big, _big_, **BIG** "Thank You" to **Bastet** for letting me borrow her lovely characters: Vlad and Irina. This story just wouldn't have been the same without them, so a huge round of applause for her and her wonderful Russians! (Cue: Applause) I fell in love with them instantly, and have quite honestly been wanting to put them in a story ever since I was introduced to them. :)  
Oh, and this is like a year old now, for those of you who actually _read_ my bio - boring, innit? ;) Anyhow, I wrote about half of this the day after Christmas 2005, and the rest on a random snowy day in February. So, yeah, took me awhile to get it up, but I do like it. :) And apologies for both the eternal Author's Note (more of an Author's Epistle at this point...), and for all the parentheses... There are a lot of them today. And for the greater-than-usual smiley ratio... I do hope none of you are smiley intolerant. But hey, it's almost Christmas:D  
So this is mostly Rodney introspection kind of stuff, with his father, mother and Jeannie having (very) brief cameos. It's the Season 1 Team. Lots (maybe too much?) snow imagery. It's angsty (hey - _I_ wrote it!), but it ends up pretty much all right, as I think Christmas stories really should. And so on that note... Merry Christmas everyone!  
**Disclaimer: I don't own Rodney, John, Teyla, Aiden, Jeannie, or Christmas. :) I do, however (so far), own both his mother, and M8C-502. They will probably never do me much good, but I do like to have them. Though I'd rather have Rodney... Hey, who knows - Christmas comes but once a year, right? ;)**

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_I'm dreaming of a white Christmas,  
Just like the ones I used to know...  
Where the treetops glisten,  
And children listen  
To hear sleighbells in the snow. _

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas,  
With every Christmas card I write.  
May your days be merry and bright,  
And may all your Christmases be white…

Rodney's feet crunched wetly through the thick snowfall blanketing the ground on the way back to the Stargate. He watched the snow crystals sparkling as the scant sunlight intermittently caught their minute, reflective surfaces, and ruminated on how long it had been since he'd really thought about snow. Or ice. Or any sort of winter weather at all.

This was mostly due to the fact that Atlantis didn't have a proper winter. It never got below freezing, so snow was an impossibility. And though Rodney and his team had been to a few very cold planets, he'd usually been too caught up in something else to be casually considering the weather conditions. Either there was some sort of trade deal going on, or he and his teammates were just trying to survive.

God, that had happened way too often!

But now, on the leisurely return trip to the Gate and Atlantis, mission completed, and a mere week before Christmas... Rodney realised just how much he'd missed the snow.

He raised his eyes from his military-issue snowboots to survey his surroundings more fully: The snow had coated everything overnight in a seven-inch cover of perfect whiteness. The clumps of trees scattered throughout the field had had their ugly, bare blackness concealed, and even the looming conifers here and there looked far less intimidating, blending into the serenity of the picture.

Slight rolling hills housed only magic, ghostly blue shadows in their deepest recesses. And as Rodney continued to look around him, the sun emerged briefly from behind the clouds sparsely veiling it, and the thin shadows danced and darted away over the fields, revealing the pristine view in all its true, multifaceted, glittering wonder.

Rodney sighed, his breath forming a smoke which dissolved into the cold atmosphere, and a smile played over his mouth. He liked the snow, always had. It covered up the horrid, dank coarseness of winter, and created a sort of silent unity which brought any outdoor scene from being nothing but unlovely chaos to become something... beautiful.

Rodney had always appreciated that. As a child, anything that covered up the dismal, sodden ugliness of a snowless Canadian winter was a very good thing. Especially at Christmas. Rodney's childhood Christmases had needed all they help they could get.

He'd been pretty idealistic back then - which was definitely pathetic, but just as certainly true. He'd wanted Christmas to be something wonderful, magical, full of light and joy and happiness. But it wasn't, not in his family. If anyone at all came over to visit, it was never anyone who cared about him. Any and all festivities were just occasion for more fighting between his parents, which sometimes went so far beyond all control and belief that Rodney was thrown into utter despair at the wrongness of it.

It was at one of those times that he'd first taken refuge in the snow. His parents had been screaming at eachother about who was coming, who wasn't coming, and eventually about how, given their wishes, neither one would be spending Christmas with the other. Though they had expressed it a good deal less politely.

Rodney, still idealistic at five-and-a-half, had been unable to listen to the quarrel any longer when he had hoped for so much from this Christmas. He'd snuck outside - an easy feat, given the volume of his parents' voices - and run and run and run until he was far away from that house and those angry voices that should have been happy. He'd huddled up under a pine tree on a hill, and let the bitter cold wind blow against his face until his eyes were dry and his cheeks burned red and raw by the frigid air.

It had been a while before he'd noticed the snow. White flakes coming down from the thick grey clouds above had already powdered the black, frozen ground. Rodney had watched in fascination as the snowflakes got bigger and bigger, and covered the dreadfully unpleasant winter scene faster and faster. The blacks, browns and murky greens were being hidden beneath lovely white snowflakes that were falling, drifting, swirling...

It made a world that had seemed so hopelessly awful into something beautiful after all. Even though you knew the icy deadness was still under there somewhere, it helped immessurably that you couldn't actually see it. The snow transformed the ugly, despairing world into something clean and bright and new.

Rodney had no idea how long he'd sat under that tree, just watching the snow fall. He didn't remember being cold, though he probably should have been even in the coat he'd had the intelligence to bring along. But eventually, he'd realised that it was getting dark and he should go home, and that he was starting to shiver.

Reluctantly, he'd gotten up and started back through the ever-thickening storm. It wasn't really that far, and he'd found his way easily - which he was almost sorry for when his mother's foul mood had immediately been turned on him for being gone so long without telling anyone.

She'd made him clean several things around the house, standing over him the entire time, and yelling to the counterpoint of baby Jeannie's cries of displeasure, no matter if he did a good job or not. But thinking of the snow slowly and softly covering the bare branches of the trees and the dark, dead grass outside had helped somehow.

And when he had finally gotten away to go to his room, he had run immediately to the window and thrown it open - to see that the snow was indeed still falling: the large, fluffy flakes moving in a silent, gracious dance from the heavens above down to the tainted earth below. The dreariness of earlier was gone, vanished without a trace, and instead everything common had become something shining, pale, and wonderful. The immaculate whiteness somehow caught what little light there was and magnified it a million times, illuminating everything with a sort of dreamy clarity, a radiance that seemed to be generated within the depths of the snow itself.

Rodney had leaned out of the window, away from the misery within, and lost himself in the magic of the world outside, where not a single human footstep, tear, or unkind word had marred the irreproachable beauty. It was like music – less ordered, less perfect, with the inherent randomness of nature, but it had the same soul to it. The sense of something removed and greater than flawed humanity, and Rodney took refuge in it. Peace flowed over him with the cold wind streaming in. _This,_ at least, was right.

Rodney had found hope in the untouched loveliness of the snow that day. He'd always liked the snow before, but after that night it meant something more to him, almost as music did. It had helped him through winter after winter while he was growing up. It became particularly important towards the end of December: Christmases with snow were much easier to bear, and Christmases without... were very difficult indeed.

Rodney had never forgotten that - and even now, years, decades later, the snow still called to something within him, the serenity of it answering some longing deep within his soul.

But at the same time, it reawoke long-buried wishes for things he'd never had... All the classic, Christmassy things: gatherings with friends and family, laughter, an exchange of presents where the objects themselves were the least important things, stockings by the fire, traditions passed down and carried on from year to year, sleigh rides, carollers at the door, decorating the house not as a chore but as an enjoyable preparation, evenings with candy canes and hot chocolate, even Christmas cards...

No one sent him Christmas cards. Jeannie had for a while, but she'd stopped, either because she'd lost track of where he was or because she was too discouraged by the fact that he'd never sent any back. It wasn't that he didn't care, it was just that somehow the thought of sending any Christmas cards at all, let alone one to Jeannie, dug up memories and feelings that Rodney had never been able to face. The thought alone filled him with guilty panic.

But now that he might not get back again, he really wished he'd done it while he had the chance.

He wished a lot of things.

But it was too late, and he couldn't make any of those wishes come true.

Ghosts of Christmas Past haunted him - and Rodney had always thought those were supposed to be the nicer ones. But his handful of happy Christmas memories were smothered amid the overwhelming volumes of unhappy ones. Looking back was a dangerous game, and one he couldn't avoid playing when it was Christmastime, and there was snow.

It had been very bad in Russia for a while. Something about the country and the people going about their unfamiliar preparations for a merry Christmas he didn't understand at all had hurt even more than usual. And they certainly had snow in Russia! He'd gotten more than enough firsthand experience of that… Yes, when he'd first come to Russia, the loneliness had been worse than anything he'd ever known. Being alone in a strange country and knowing that no one even misses you back home - that you don't even really _have_ a home, can add a whole new level to the concept of homesickness.

Russia had turned out better than he could have expected though, he reminded himself. He'd made a couple of very good friends there... Vlad and Irina. He'd actually sent them Christmas cards, along with some little present every year after getting back to the States. Damn, he couldn't this year... That hurt, and it hurt even more to think that they probably were the only people back on Earth who _would_ notice the absence of a card from him.

Rodney decided again that he hated Christmas cards.

In the right context, he was sure they were great, another piece in the puzzle that was Christmas as he'd never known it. But the way he'd always seen them was as harbingers of guilt, loneliness, or in the best cases, with no real meaning whatsoever. Like birthday cards, but less personal.

Vlad and Irina had been the exception to that, as they had been to so many other things. Somehow, it had never bothered him to send them good wishes every year. They'd done a lot for him, more than they'd ever know, he was sure. They'd befriended him when he was alone, taken him in when he was sick, and given him the finest Christmas present he'd ever gotten: love, companionship, and a renewed faith in humanity when he'd thought he'd given up forever. They'd shown him something he'd forgotten, and reminded him of what it was like to really be happy. He owed them a lot.

They'd never sent him a card themselves, of course, and he knew that this was because they couldn't afford the cost of sending something all the way from Russia to the US. He'd never considered holding it against them, especially since he was pretty sure they didn't quite understand the full scope of the traditional headache over the Atlantic.

Still, if they ever had sent him a card, it would have helped to redeem the whole idea for Rodney, but as it was... He really didn't like Christmas cards. Which was why he avoided thinking about them, focussing on something else, _anything_ else instead when they obtruded themselves on his consciousness. Most of the time, that worked out very well for him. However, out here now, surrounded by this winter wonderland, it was much more difficult to ban the thoughts he so studiously avoided throughout the rest of the year.

The snow did very strange things to him, as it always had, both helping and hurting him at once. Not so much a mixed blessing as a blessing with a curse rolled up inside of it...

Christmas would be very different this year, away from - well, Earth, but not _home_ really. Atlantis was home now, but still... He couldn't help but think, walking through the snowy world of M8C-502, that he'd be homesick again this Christmas for the home and the Christmas he'd never really had. It would be terribly illogical to be lonely now when he really had friends for the first time in his life, but something made him feel there should be more, that there was something missing more than ever this year.

And there'd be no white Christmas on Atlantis. Maybe that was a good thing.

Still, what was he so worried about? He had a real home now, for the first time since he could remember. He had friends – a family, really, who would stick by him through anything with a loyalty that Rodney had used to dream of. He'd finally found a place to belong… So why did he feel that, even here in Atlantis, something was out of place?

Rodney puzzled over this, finding no answer, until he suddenly felt a touch and heard his name.

He glanced around to see the Major staring at him. "Hmm?" Rodney asked.

Sheppard's eyebrows formed a wary frown just over his aviator-style sunglasses. "You okay, Rodney? You've been pretty quiet."

"Of course, I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?" Rodney replied with more than a hint of his usual impatience. He saw the Major's frown deepen, and turned away and continued towards the Stargate to avoid the unwanted scrutiny. The Major, for all he was Rodney's best friend, had neither the need nor the right to know about any of what Rodney had just been thinking.

"Well," he heard Sheppard's voice from behind him as he tramped along, head down, "usually when you don't say anything for more than two minutes at a stretch, there's a pretty drastic reason."

No answer. Rodney didn't want to be drawn into any sort of personal conversation.

"Besides, I had to call you three times before you noticed."

Rodney felt a flush of embarrassment which probably wouldn't be obvious in the cold. He slowed for a second, but didn't look back. "I didn't hear you," he snapped in annoyance.

"Yeah, that's what I said," drawled John. Rodney ignored him and kept walking. He could see the Stargate ahead now. It looked oddly festive with the snow on top of it. Rodney almost smiled at that. There was something really, oddly funny about the thought of a Christmassy Stargate.

But he frowned again when he heard Sheppard say, "Sorta glum, isn't he?"

He just had time to stiffen suspiciously at Ford's low chuckle before he felt a snowball explode against his back.

Rodney whirled around with a sharp, "Hey!" to see his three teammates watching him: Aiden with a huge grin, Teyla wearing a sedate smile, and the Major with that maddening, laconic, fly-boy grin. He wasn't even _trying_ very hard to look innocent.

"What was that for?" Rodney demanded with an aggressive head tilt.

John shrugged. "You're such a pain when you're cranky," he complained, the grin getting wider.

Rodney glared back at him.

"I believe Major Sheppard was trying to… lighten your spirits, Dr. McKay," Teyla explained sweetly.

"Yeah, well, people don't usually do that by _throwing_ things at you," Rodney retorted.

Aiden was still grinning. "C'mon, doc, it's fun!" he said. He didn't seem to notice Rodney's dry, unamused look, but turned to Teyla and started explaining. "Y'see, on Earth, when we get snow, the kids'll make it into balls like the Major did, and throw them at eachother. You can have these huge fights, and –"

He broke off with a yelp as Teyla, who had bent down to scoop up a handful of snow, suddenly tossed it straight at Ford's chest. He blinked at her in wordless surprise, and John and Rodney, who had resumed the grinning/glaring routine, both spun in perfect synchrony to stare in open-mouthed shock.

"Yes, we have this custom as well, Lieutenant," she said brightly with a wide smile and mischievously sparkling eyes.

Rodney noticed John was still looking at Teyla with raised eyebrows. Narrowing his eyes craftily, he quickly made a snowball and hit Sheppard in the shoulder with it.

He grinned in evil delight as his victim spluttered, "Hey!" brushed off his jacket, removed his sunglasses and put them in a pocket to protect them from further onslaughts, and stooped to get some more snow. By the time he straightened up, Rodney had put some distance between them. He also had another snowball, with which he hit John in the stomach. However, he didn't move fast enough to avoid Sheppard's retaliation.

Meanwhile, Teyla had hit Aiden again, and then run away laughing. He set off after her with a huge handful of snow.

After that, it was basically a free-for-all for a while, until they started using the nearby trees for cover. Teams spontaneously formed with Rodney and Aiden against John and Teyla. All had good aim, so using cover and strategy became the name of the game. At one point during the proceedings, when John was being bombarded by both Aiden and Rodney at the same time, he shouted something about throwing snowballs at your superiour officer being a court-marshallable offense, making Ford visibly nervous. A truce was then called, and a discussion held which ended with Aiden and Teyla switching sides.

John and Aiden used classic military tactics, ducking in and out of the trees, and using hand motions to relay their opponents' positions to eachother. Rodney and Teyla were less orthodox, trying out a number of different schemes. The one they found to work the best was for Teyla to sneak up behind either John or Aiden, hit them and run away; at which point Rodney would make use of the distraction to launch several premade missiles, all of which would generally hit home.

Rodney had the most accurate aim, never missing if he had any kind of a clear shot. Teyla made the most of her speed and agility, and got hit fewer times than any of the men. Aiden's snowballs where so gigantic that each one counted for several of anyone else's, and Rodney felt several times like he'd been hit by an avalanche. John could throw farther than any of the others, and several times he hit Rodney when the scientist was sure he was safely out of range. John tended to make things up as he went along, changing his plans on the spur of the moment, making him very unpredictable. Though Rodney was strangely talented at guessing which way the Major would duck when faced with an incoming snowball, and hit him anyway nine times out of ten. Which, needless to say, annoyed John no end, as did Rodney's inevitable smug grin. John blamed his apparent predictability on too much fieldwork together with his astrophysicist friend.

It was only after a couple of hours of this that someone thought to look at their watch, and realized that they were now forty minutes overdue in getting back. Besides which, it had started to snow again, with large, soft flakes drifting placidly down from thickening clouds above. So they accordingly broke up the battle and dialled back to Atlantis, receiving some odd looks from Weir when they walked into the Gateroom completely covered in snow. John explained carefully that there had been a snowstorm. Elizabeth didn't seem convinced. Possibly because a snowstorm neither covers you from head to foot with traces of caked snow, nor accounts for flushed cheeks and exhilarated grins.

But she didn't press the issue, and only sent them all off to get cleaned up with a private smile. Rodney accordingly went to his room to get out of his wet clothes and reflect on how snow was good for so many things. He couldn't remember if he'd ever had that much fun in the snow, but he was pretty sure he hadn't. The laughter ringing over the smooth whiteness, broken here and there where someone had run from an assailant or paused for more ammunition. Breathless words of insult or encouragement shouted from person to person. It had been… a lot of fun. Most of Rodney's previous experience with snowballs had been unpleasant, as they had usually been directed at him by many other people of less than kind intent. He'd thought snow and people didn't really mix, but now he'd found he'd been wrong. As in so many other cases, you just needed to find the right people.

He took a shower, put on some dry clothes, and went to have an abnormally cheerful dinner with the rest of his team. Some more work in the lab, and he went to bed, tired and happy.

If... no, _when_ they got back to Earth, he'd have to visit Vlad and Irina. Or call them, or something. He was beginning to recognize more and more how much they'd done for him that one Christmas a few years ago, just by being truly kind when no one else could be bothered. They'd wanted him to be happy, to make friends, to see that there was more to life than scientific ambition and constant loneliness.

He'd listened to them because their actions had spoken even more clearly and convincingly than their words.

He thought they'd be proud of him now.

He'd remember them on Christmas, as he always did, and he was fairly sure that they'd be thinking of him as well, because that was the sort of people they were. He'd probably miss them. When Christmas itself came around, he would probably be miserably lonely... Old habits weren't easy to break. But it didn't really matter, because he'd had his Christmas snow today. He almost felt he'd had Christmas six days early, and he didn't really dare to hope for anything more this December.

But so many miracles had happened in the past year, who could tell what Christmas Future held? Maybe - just maybe - Christmas this year, despite the facts that there couldn't be any snow, and that he was millions of lightyears away from what should have been home and family… Maybe this Christmas would be the next step on the road Vlad and Irina had started him on, towards someday having a Christmas the way it should have been all those years ago.

Having the friends he now had, and seeing that snow today, Rodney felt he could dream anything at all… Even that the future held hope for all that he'd longed for in the dismal past. Visions filled his mind, optimistic dreams of a tomorrow that would cover his miserable yesterdays with a beauty he'd never known before, and a peace that could still give him another chance to make his life what he'd always wished for it to be. Nothing could repair the dreary, frozen past, but friendship could cover that ugliness with a fresh promise of happiness, unsullied by the lifelessness beneath. His life could still become something wonderful and new.

The Christmas snow had again given him Hope: the perfect present, because that's what Christmas was really all about. Hope, and life, and dreams of change for a better tomorrow. And here in the distant Pegasus Galaxy, living with a new family in the Lost City of the Ancients, Rodney felt hopeful enough to believe - just for a moment – that someday, those dreams might even come true.

_May your days be merry and bright,  
And may all your Christmases be white!_

**The End**

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_A/N: As always, I love and adore any and all reviews. I know it's a terrible cliche, but it's true that derogatory reviews are far better than none at all, because then at least I know where I went wrong. But, seriously, I can't adequately express how much I appreciate those of you who take the time to review - even if I'm a bad person and don't reply to you... (Looks sheepish.)  
Thanks so, so much for reading, and Merry Christmas!_


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